On February 25, the Chair of the INES Executive Committee and President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation David Krieger, along with his wife Carolee, Daniel Ellsberg, Cindy Sheehan and 11 others, were arrested at Vandenberg Air Force Base while protesting the test launch of a Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. About 100 people came to Vandenberg to protest the launch that, as usual, happened under the cover of darkness. Read the interview with David Krieger "Sense of Urgency Leads to Civil Disobedienc" here: wagingpeacetoday.blogspot.com/2012/02/sense-of-urgency-leads-to-civil.html

China’s nuclear arsenal is at a size that makes comparison with U.S. nuclear force level meaningless – even at the lowest level feared by the critics – but the threat assessment showed that China’s nuclear force modernization has been slower than predicted during the Bush administration.

The dangers of a military attack on Iran’s nuclear programme
By Stuart Parkinson
There are increasingly vocal demands for military action to halt Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons programme. Stuart Parkinson, ED of the INES member organisation Scientists for Global Responsibility UK, takes a critical look at the evidence for such a programme and argues that any military attack is likely to make matters considerably worse. Read on here.This text is an advance publication of the INES Global Responsibility Newsletter No. 63., publication date April 2012.

Stop the War protests against Iran and Syria intervention
On 28 January 2012 at the United States Embassy in London, Stop the War held a rally to launch the Don't Attack Iran campaign. Hundreds of anti-war protesters gathered in central London at a demonstration against Western intervention in Iran and Syria. The rally, organised by the Stop the War Coalition, took place outside the US embassy in Grosvenor Square. Protesters waved banners bearing the words "Don't attack Iran" and "Hands off Iran and Syria", while the crowd joined together in chanting: "One, two, three, four, we don't want another war. Five, six, seven, eight, stop the killing, stop the hate." Read on here: stopwar.org.uk/index.php/video/1078-stop-the-war-protests-against-iran-and-syria-intervention-

Preventing War Saves More than Lives
A new fact sheet from the Friends Committee on National Legislation shows that preventing war is 60 times cheaper than fighting it.
Research has indicated that investing early to prevent conflicts from escalating into violent crises is, on average, 60 times more cost effective than intervening after violence erupts. Still, the world spends just $1 on conflict prevention for every $1,885 it spends on military budgets. In the U.S., less than 2% of income tax goes to civilian foreign affairs agencies, while 39% goes to the military.

INES Annual Report 2011
INES was founded 20 years ago in the belief that, in our complex world of scientific discovery and technological innovation, scientists and engineers have an important role to play in the assessment of risk and in providing leadership for global responsibility in the uses of science and technology. For 20 years INES has been an open network of dedicated organizations and individuals seeking to apply the training of science and engineering to the many serious social and environmental problems and risks created by science and technology. Our message at INES has been and remains that there are limits to the applications of science and technology, and that those limits must be defined by global responsibility to those alive on the planet now and to future generations that will follow us on the planet. Download the report here: www.inesglobal.com/download.php